May 26, 1988|By Anne Groer and J. Craig Crawford of The Sentinel Staff

SAN FRANCISCO — Trailing in the polls and hoping for a miracle, Jesse Jackson took a few shots at Democratic presidential front-runner Mike Dukakis during Wednesday night's last debate of the 6-month primary season.

But the foes jointly blasted President Reagan and Vice President George Bush on everything from the CIA's dealings with Panamanian strongman Manuel Antonio Noriega, indicted on drug trafficking charges, to Reagan's veto of a major trade bill.

Their chief disagreement came on presidential economics. Jackson, who just released a detailed plan for federal spending, accused Dukakis, who has refused to get specific, of pushing ''a budget of promises and not a budget of numbers -- and a budget is numbers.''

Dukakis shot back.

''Let me tell you what's puzzling about Jesse's budget,'' he said. ''He proposes government-sponsored health care but doesn't include how he's going to pay for it.''

''That won't cost the taxpayers a dime,'' he said. ''Jackson just wants a study commission. What good will that do?''

On foreign policy, Jackson wished Reagan ''Godspeed and good astrology'' on his trip to Moscow for a meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. He advocated such Soviet-American ventures as trying to end the Iran-Iraq war and the conflict in southern Africa.

Wednesday night's debate started with questions to Dukakis on his opposition to capital punishment.

''You don't have to be for the death penalty to be tough on crime,'' Dukakis said, adding that it would not be an ''ideological litmus test'' for his Supreme Court nominees.

Bush and his aides have made it clear they will make Dukakis' opposition to capital punishment a general election issue to depict him as soft on

crime.

''The record speaks for itself,'' Dukakis said. ''My state has cut crime more than any other state with one exception. We've done it by being tough on criminals.''

Jackson was asked how he might stop a recent wave of drug-related youth gang killings in Los Angeles.

He said he would increase education spending and scholarships to divert youngsters from lawlessness and would go after drug pushers as well as bankers who launder narcotics dollars.

But he said he opposed drug testing for office workers and as president would seek more drug treatment centers.

Dukakis was pressed to compare a woman's right to have an abortion, which he supports, to an individual's right to use drugs, which he opposes.

''Look, the world is full of situations where we say, 'You can't do that because it's against the law,' '' Dukakis said. ''I happen to think that a woman has a right to make that abortion decision. Yet we know that drugs are bad for people and we put severe restrictions on that.''

Jackson, who is also pro-choice, said the difference was ''the level of death, destruction and crime'' from drugs, which pose ''a hazard to our public health and well-being.''

Both said they oppose the death penalty for drug dealers -- a Bush proposal -- and Dukakis branded ''the height of hypocrisy'' Reagan's push to execute pushers while negotiating for Noriega's exit from Panama.

The two closed their hourlong face-off with underdog Jackson asking Californians to ''vote your conscience'' and Dukakis, the virtual nominee, urging them to think ahead to his race against Bush when ''we will be making a basic choice between basic sets of values in November.''

Two new polls of California voters show Dukakis leading Jackson by more than 2-to-1 among the state's registered Democrats. Voters go to the polls June 7 in California as well as in New Jersey, Montana and New Mexico.